RSS Feeds

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It allows you to keep track of web content on a number of websites, without having to visit each one to check for updates.

How do feeds work?

Once you have subscribed to a feed from a particular website or part of a website, every time that site is updated your feed will include the new content.

In order to receive the feed you need a 'feed reader'. There are a number of options available to do this. You can use a web-based reader, such as FeedReader, NewsGator, My Yahoo, Bloglines, Google Reader, and more. Or you can download feed reader software to your desktop. Some email programmes, such as Outlook, also allow you to integrate your feeds into your mail programme.

How to subscribe to a feed

If the page that you are looking at includes a feed button, you can subscribe by either dragging the URL of the feed into the reader you have chosen, or cutting and pasting the URL of the page into the reader.

On our website the pages that have feeds have an RSS icon, like the one at the top of this article, displayed.